The Swarthmore College Board
of Managers has voted to replace financial aid denied to students under
the Higher Education Act's (HEA) anti-drug provision, which delays or denies
federal financial aid to students with drug convictions. In so doing,
it joins Hampshire College and a handful of other private colleges that
have responded to the provision by creating replacement financial aid funds.
According to the latest estimates from the US Department of Education,
some 43,000 students or would-be students were denied aid under the ban
this academic year.

While the move had its genesis
in a letter written two years ago by student activists, Swarthmore officials
portrayed the decision as in line with positions the school has taken in
the past. For example, Swarthmore President Al Bloom told the Swarthmore
Phoenix last Thursday, "in 1983, the college joined with 10 other schools
to state publicly that we thought access to education should not be linked
with the Selective Service requirement."

The same drive to disentangle
educational access from social policy issues was behind the board's decision,
Swarthmore vice president for college and community relations Maurice Eldridge
told the Phoenix. "It is bad policy to use federal funds intended
to expand access to education as a means of enforcing drug laws," Eldridge
said.

Bloom told the Phoenix that
the board's action "would entail that we meet our obligation" to ensure
that any student accepted for admission at the college be able to enroll.

While students welcomed the
move, concern lingers over a proposed revision to the student admission
application form intended to identify students who could be in danger of
losing federal financial aid. According to the Phoenix, Swarthmore
is in the process of finalizing language for a new question on the admissions
application form. Currently, the form asks prospective students,
"Have you ever been suspended or dismissed from school?" The new
question, however, will ask about criminal records. The Phoenix quoted
Student Council co-president Matt Rubin as saying he had "reservations"
about asking applicants about their criminal records, and reported that
students will be meeting this week with admissions and financial aid dean
Jim Bock to address the issue.

Former Swarthmore Students
for Sensible Drug Policy (http://www.ssdp.org)
head Benjamin Gaines and then head of the College Democrats Delonte Gholston
wrote a letter to the Phoenix in February 2000, praising the college for
participating in a boycott of South Carolina over its flying of the Confederate
flag and urging the college to broaden its efforts to create a "humane
and just" society by working to repeal the HEA anti-drug provision.
The letter also asked Swarthmore President Bloom to "work with the Swarthmore
financial aid department, to replace aid denied to students because of
this act of Congress."

Two years later, the effort
begun with that letter has borne fruit. "Following the letter, I
met with the school's president a few times, and he agreed to look into
it and raise the question to the board of managers," Gaines told DRCNet.
"Since then, the process has been largely out of our hands." Gaines
has since graduated and moved into the workaday world, but his efforts
have now paved the way for Swarthmore students affected by the anti-drug
provision to be able to continue their education.

The loan replacement tactic
is a powerful symbolic gesture in the effort to repeal the HEA anti-drug
provision and one that could be repeated at other private colleges and
universities across the land. State universities, on the other hand,
are less likely to be fertile ground for this sort of maneuver, given that
their political status as government agencies opens them up to a potential
backlash from drug war zealots.

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